Down Among the Dead Men (A Thriller) (14 page)

Vargas tried to swallow. “…What?”

“Has the message…been…received.”

Vargas’s voice wavered. “Yes. Yes, it has.”

“Excellent,” the man said. “You had better go now. You have a long drive ahead of you.”

Vargas just nodded, unable to speak, then clicked off the phone.

32

H
E MUST’VE CHECKED
his rearview mirror at least a hundred times before he hit the interstate, but he saw no sign of the Town Car.

Not that this was any guarantee he wasn’t being followed.

He left the way he came, shooting up the 10 toward Las Cruces, figuring he’d drive straight into Phoenix, take a rest, then continue on to Los Angeles. But by the time he reached New Mexico—a short forty-minute drive from El Paso—he was feeling sick to his stomach and pulled into a truck stop to throw up.

Staggering out of the restroom, he sat in a booth near the windows of the truck stop café, searching the parking lot for any sign of the Town Car.

All he saw were half a dozen big rigs and his own battered Corolla.

This gave him some relief, but there was something else gnawing at him that just didn’t seem to want to let go. It was, he thought, the thing that had made him sick. A feeling he’d had only once in the past, when confronted about his drug abuse and those accusations of fraud:

Shame.

He felt ashamed.

Vargas had been in tight situations before. Had seen his life in danger. Had been threatened and terrorized by gang members on the streets of East Los Angeles. Had gone up against striking Teamsters who wanted to beat him senseless. Had even been shot by a psycho ex-cop whose career he had managed to destroy with a series of articles on police corruption.

But he’d never before backed down.

Never.

He knew it was a miracle that he was still alive. Whoever was behind this thing, this House of Death massacre, could easily have killed him and been done with it. He wasn’t sure
why
he had been spared but thought that it might have something to do with his profession, no matter how tarnished his reputation might be.

A dead or missing reporter—especially one as notorious as Vargas—was like a dead or missing whistle-blower. It might raise more questions than these people could afford. So why not scare the ever-loving crap out of the guy and send him on his way?

And it had worked.

He was about as spooked as a man could get.

Despite all those past brushes with injury and death, despite all his thoughts of an itch needing to be scratched, Vargas had caved. And caved big-time.

The sight of that severed head—which he’d left in the alleyway Dumpster—had done exactly what it was intended to do.

And he felt ashamed.

Ashamed for letting them terrorize him. For letting them scare him away from a story that was looking to be much bigger than he had ever imagined. A story he had hoped would be the first step in salvaging a ruined career.

And he needed that career. Needed it desperately.

But he also liked breathing.

A waitress came over. She didn’t look much older than a high school kid, but she sounded like an old truck stop pro.

“What can I get you, hon?”

A backbone,
Vargas almost told her, but he wasn’t in the mood for conversation. “Just coffee.”

“You look like you could use something stronger. Bad night?”

Vargas glanced at his reflection in the window. Was it that obvious?

“Bad enough,” he said.

She nodded. “I know how that goes. How about a piece of cherry pie to cheer you up a bit?”

Vargas shook his head, feeling his stomach flip-flop. “Just the coffee.”

She nodded again and went away and he returned his attention to the parking lot as another big rig pulled in. A beefy trucker wearing a cowboy hat climbed down from the driver’s seat, eyeballing Vargas as he crossed toward the café entrance.

Vargas averted his gaze, then immediately regretted it, feeling like a spineless fool. Not that he gave a shit about macho stare-downs, but Jesus, what the hell was the matter with him?

When had he lost his edge?

He sat there, waiting for his coffee, sinking deeper and deeper into the quicksand of depression, wondering where the old Nick Vargas had gone.

He thought about the men who had brutalized him, about the bodies in that desert house. About the American woman, who was probably long dead but certainly deserved better than she’d gotten.

Deserved to have her story told.

Sure, he could forget about her and go back to California, maybe get a job writing technical manuals or working up travel brochures, and he might lead a safe, carefree life—maybe even a comfortable one.

But he’d never get another book deal, and he’d never again work for a major newspaper, would never feel the pride he’d once felt when he saw his byline above the fold.

And he would always be remembered as the Hillbilly Heroin Addict who almost faked his way to a Pulitzer.

All because he had turned tail and run. Had let himself be intimidated by three border rats and a thug with a half-burnt face.

Mr. Blister.

A voice on the phone.

And as the waitress brought Vargas’s coffee, smiling warmly as she set it in front of him, he knew he was about to do something stupid again, if for no other reason than to rid himself of this feeling of shame.

He may have lost his edge, but he could get it back. He may well lose his life in the process, but what good was it if he lived it as a coward?

He had every right in the world to be afraid, but even the darkest of fears could be overcome.

He was, after all—as old-fashioned and corny as it might sound—a muckraker.

A truth seeker.

And maybe some of that truth was waiting for him on an egg ranch in El Paso.

33

Beth

T
HE FIRST THING
she did was go back to their stateroom, hoping that Jen was either inside sulking or getting some much-needed sleep.

But it was empty.

As dark and uninviting as ever.

Not that she’d expected anything else.

Trying to convince herself that Jen’s abrupt disappearance was just her way of saying,
Fuck you,
Beth took the elevator to the atrium, found an empty deck chair, and sat, staring out the windows at the flat, unmoving ocean.

She could feel another headache coming on. One of several she’d had to fight off in the last couple of months. Probably stress from the job. And the divorce.

But a headache was the least of her concerns.

She knew she was often too quick to dismiss Jen’s feelings, and the joke she’d made at lunch had been insensitive and maybe even a little cruel. So it made sense that Jen was mad at her.

But that didn’t keep the uneasiness from rising in her chest. A feeling that something might be wrong.

Don’t worry
.

I’m not gonna go mental on you.

Beth took her phone out of her purse and tried calling again.

As before, she was transferred straight to voice mail. Which only compounded her uneasiness.

She didn’t bother waiting for the beep. Instead, she clicked off, then punched in a quick text message:

WTF?

  It wasn’t like her sister to shut off her phone or let the battery go dead. But then, Beth had to remember that they were in Mexico and neither of them had expected to use their cell phones all that much.

Still, wouldn’t Jen have found a way to call
her
by now?

When she couldn’t take staring out at the ocean anymore, she went back downstairs and checked their stateroom again.

Still empty.

Stepping into the corridor, she noticed that their steward, a young, pleasant-faced Ethiopian man, was busy cleaning the cabin three doors down from theirs.

Beth stuck her head in the doorway.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m in cabin eight-twenty-nine?”

He turned, trash basket in hand. Nodded politely. “You need something, ma’am?”

“I’m looking for my sister. Have you seen her come by the room?”

“No, ma’am. I see her this morning, but she don’t come again.”

“What time this morning?”

“Before breakfast. Right before we dock.”

Disappointed, Beth nodded thanks, letting him get back to work.

She was turning away when the steward said, “Her name is Jennifer, yes?”

Beth stopped. “Yes. How did you know?”

“She tell me last night when I come to turn down the beds. And earlier this morning, two people come knocking on your door, calling her name.”

“What two people?”

As if Beth had to guess.

“A man and woman.”

Ugh.

Why couldn’t those sleazoids just
go away
?

“If I see her,” the steward said, “I tell her you look for her.”

Beth thanked him a second time and moved back down the corridor. She went inside the stateroom again and flicked on the light, conscious for the first time that the place had been cleaned and her suitcase, which she’d left open on her bunk, had been closed and tucked in a corner.

God, this place was small. Borderline claustrophobic. And she sure as hell didn’t feel like hanging around in here, waiting for her phone to ring.

She was about to leave when she remembered that Jen had forgotten her wallet.

Closing the door behind her, Beth checked the dresser top and the nightstand but saw no sign of it. She opened Jen’s dresser drawer and found three pairs of panties, some socks, two barely there bikinis, Jen’s cruise line voucher and passport, and nothing else.

Did that mean she’d come back to get the wallet? Or had she left it somewhere else—like the Santiagos’ stateroom?

Maybe that was the reason they’d been knocking on the door.

But why, then, hadn’t Rafael said anything about the wallet when he saw Beth at the restaurant? Wouldn’t he have given it to her?

Unless, of course, he had already given it to Jen.

Or Marta had.

Could they have run into Jen at the leather-goods shop as Beth waited at the restaurant? Had Rafael merely been distracting Beth so Jen and Marta could sneak away for a date with some Jell-O shooters?

The notion seemed so goddamned juvenile it wasn’t funny. But it was also within the realm of possibility. Maybe Beth’s earlier thought had been right. She really
had
been ditched.

As she stood there feeling anger start to boil up, her gaze drifted to her suitcase, and she had half a mind to scoop it up and follow through on the threat she’d made in the dining room. Find the nearest airport and go home.

The ultimate ditch.

The
quintessential
“fuck you.”

But what if she was wrong? What if this wasn’t a junior high prank at all?

What if Jen was in some kind of trouble?

They were, after all, in a foreign country. And while Beth had never had a xenophobic bone in her body, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that she’d felt just the slightest bit of trepidation as they’d walked the streets of Playa Azul.

She thought of the gangbangers who had been ogling Jen with undisguised lust.

Could one of them have followed her? Confronted her when she was alone?

Beth’s anger dissipated as the uneasiness grew inside her stomach. She tried to talk herself down.

She was, after all, in a profession that examined the worst of people. Her natural instinct was to look at the dark side of human nature, simply because she was always surrounded by it. She’d interviewed enough rape victims and prosecuted enough of their assailants to permanently color her view of the world.

She’d always tried not to let this carry over into her private life, but how could it not?

Yet she knew it was still too early for panic.

Much too early.

She considered heading back into town to have another look around but decided to check the ship first, from top to bottom, stern to bow—every restaurant and bar and extracurricular activity in progress—in hopes that she’d find Jen hiding out.

Or getting drunk.

Because a drunk, unhappy Jen was better than no Jen at all.

34

“
MAY I HELP
you, ma’am?”